It’s still early yet, but, reportedly, shortly before a would-be assassin opened fire on a baseball team comprised of Republican members of Congress, hitting three of them, including House of Representatives Majority Whip, Steve Scalise, he asked Congressman Ron DeSantis whether his prospective victims were Republicans or Democrats.

Presumably, when the shooter, who has just been identified as James Hodgkinson, was satisfied that it was Republicans on whom he was about to set his sights, he shot off dozens of rounds from his hunting rifle.

If these eye-witness accounts are accurate, then there is no question that this potential massacre was the worst act of political violence that we have witnessed in this country in a long time.

Neither is there any question that it is the culmination of a trend of leftist violence that, in a variety of ways and in a variety of contexts, the left has been visiting upon Donald Trump’s supporters and Republicans generally from at least the time that our President announced his plans to run for the office back in June of 2015.

There have been literally hundreds of documented attacks against those sporting pro-Trump paraphernalia and attending Trump’s rallies.

Leftist billionaires and millionaires have been busy financing mercenaries, paid leftist agitators, to crash Republican politicians’ “town hall” meetings, to “get in the faces” of Republicans, a course of action that Barack Obama once infamously urged his supporters to appropriate when dealing with their political opponents.

Shortly prior to the last presidential election, a GOP campaign office in North Carolina was firebombed.

Academics, like Cornel West, along with others of his ideological ilk, have created a “Resistance” movement against, not any particular policies of the President and his party, but the very election of Donald Trump.

Comedian Kathy Griffin has a photoshoot in which she is featured holding up the decapitated, bloody head of the President.

Rapper “Snoop Dogg” makes a video of himself shooting a clown that is obviously meant to resemble Trump, and his nephew “Bow Wow” threatens to “pimp out” the First Lady.

The New York Public Theater stages a play that depicts a Trump-centric Julius Caesare being stabbed to death.

The left, whether in its standard Democrat or neoconservative/NeverTrump varieties, spares no occasion to delegitimize Trump’s presidency and demonize, no, dehumanize, him as a person. By implication, leftists, as represented by Hillary Clinton’s immemorial remarks, demonize and dehumanize as well the President’s tens of millions of supporters, those “irredeemables” and “deplorables.”

The left has long backed Black Lives Matter (BLM), a movement—begotten by the lie that black thug Michael Brown had his hands up when he was shot and killed by a white Ferguson, Missouri police officer—some of whose members have openly demanded the death of police officers and others of whom have literally tried to bring this wish to fruition.

The left has spawned “Antifa” (“antifascists”), thugs dressed in all black and wearing masks. These punks make it their business to burn American flags, curse police officers, and use any and all available weapons in order to literally beat those who support the President and America.

Democrats in Congress, along with their NeverTrump allies across the aisle, show utter contempt for Trump. Their fellow travelers in the Fake News media—places like CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times—promote entirely unsubstantiated propaganda, like the Russian “collusion” Conspiracy, designed to vilify Trump and those in his administration as traitors to the country.

Given this toxic environment, in some cases, the murderously disdainful environment, that leftists in academia, Hollywood, the media, and Congress have promoted, it is unsurprising that some hate-filled person would decide to get in on the game by gunning down a bunch of Republicans.

What is surprising is that shootings of the type that occurred this morning in Alexandria, Virginia haven’t been occurring more frequently.

Among the things the left has given America is the return of political violence in 2017. The mass shooting in Alexandria seems to be a product of this.

Of course, thus far, no leftist commentator or “journalist” is speaking to the role that their ideology likely played in this. What the talking heads in the media have told us, though, is that the shooter was described as a “white middle-aged man.” Ah. This is telling: Whenever there’s a case of Islamic terrorism, say, or of black-on-nonblack crime, these same folks who trip over themselves in their rush to identify the whiteness of suspected criminal perpetrators are conspicuously silent on the matter of race.

All too predictably, there are already those on the left who are exploiting the gunning down of Republican lawmakers for their political agenda. Twitter is aglow with tweets about Steve Scalise’s refusal to support gun “controls” and his willingness to accept money from the NRA. Here’s one by “Katrina” or “silentkpants”: “Steve Scalise supported bills to loosen gun restrictions, opposed controls, & accepted $7, 450 from NRA.” This tweeter then adds: “My thoughts & prayers are with him.”

Though this remark doesn’t deserve to be dignified with a response—it’s irrational and disingenuous on multiple levels—I will briefly address it anyhow:

(1)As of this point, we do not yet know whether the shooter legally owned the weapon that he used. He could have obtained it through the black market or stolen it. And this brings us to our next point:

(2)Even had guns of the sort allegedly used in Virginia been completely banned, this would only create that much larger of a black market. That is to say, just like the plethora of drugs that are criminalized but which remain very much available to those who desire them, guns of all sorts will remain very much available to those who want them. Restrictions on the Second Amendment guarantee this.

(3) Because of (1) and (2), it is offensive, both intellectually and morally, to think that Scalise is somehow reaping what he sowed in opposing “controls” and accepting money from the NRA.

Again, details are still murky. However, that leftists have mainstreamed hatred of their opponents and legitimized political violence can easily explain how Republicans became targeted for death while practicing for an annual Congressional baseball game.

Republicans and all decent folks should indeed capitalize upon this outrage as a teachable moment, the moment when the remotely sober-minded, and perhaps even some of the haters, may recognize the dangerousness of the environment that their noxious words have contributed to creating.